For The First Time
by iambookworm
Summary: As if her heart were crystal glass and James Potter took it out, held it in the palm of his hand, just for a moment, a long, sweet, terrible moment, and then dropped it, letting it shatter into a billion fragments on the floor. Three-Shot.
1. I Have Something To Tell You

**Author's Note: Okay, so this a three-shot. It's short and sweet, and not very long at all! Tell me what you think!**

**R&R**

**~iambookworm**

**For The First Time**

**Chapter 1**

**I Have To Tell You Something**

"I have to tell you something."

With these words, he stands up, beckoning to his long-time girlfriend. She smiles slightly, confused, but follows alongside him, content just to be with him.

"Is it a secret?" she asks, her voice light, teasing.

He smiles slightly, but it feels disconnected, and she can see the strain.

"Yeah."

"So where are your mates?"

He looks down at her. His face is full of confusion. "What do you mean?" he inquires.

She gives that smile again, the one he's christened, "The Slight Smile" in his head.

"I mean, they know all your secrets. Hence the question."

He does the half-snort, half-laugh thing he does while he runs his hand through his hair; the one she calls, "The Nervous Snort/Laugh/Hair Run" in her head. The NSLHR for short.

"Well, you see, they're not in this secret."

"Oh?"

He only nods.

The silence falls again. They are walking still, and she wonders where. Eventually she asks, "Where are we going?"

He pauses, looks down, does the NSLHR again. "Or is that a secret, too?" she dares, her emerald eyes sparking with a challenge.

He is looking at her, his hazel eyes uncomfortable, perhaps contemplating that which he must tell her, before the NSLHR is back again, and he breaks eye-contact with her, suddenly awkward.

"Sort of" is his only reply.

She looks down, disappointed.

There is a pause.

"Are you breaking up with me?" she asks suddenly, her voice sad and low, her eyes, though downcast, he can tell, are shining with unshed tears.

A blockage, like a large knot, in her throat. She doesn't understand.

There is a sudden tightness in his chest. He can't follow through. He doesn't know why he even considered it anymore. He needs her. He needs her so much, he can hardly breathe.

"No!" he gasps through his own obstacle in his chest. "No… I… why would you even think that?"

She looks up, her eyes are still shining, but now they are fierce too. "Because," she spits, the emeralds sparking, the fire that wreaths her face seeming to crackle, "because you stare at Victoria's butt! Because you ogle Lindsay's chest! Because you would rather spend time with your best mates than me, and I know they're your brothers, but then what am I? Because you flirt with Roxanna! Because you hardly ever say my name! Because I know you wish I were someone else! Because… sometimes… sometimes… I need you. I need you, and you aren't there. Because no matter how much I need you… you don't need me."

He stands there shocked; his mouth has fallen open, his eyes are filled with something indescribable—pain, perhaps—and his hands are limp at his sides. For once, the hand is absent from his hair, the laugh all but dead in his throat, the slightly condescending snort stopped as all the breath abruptly _wooshes_ out of him.

For the first time that night, for the first time in a while, he says her name: "Lily…" His voice cracks suddenly. He tries again.

"Lily… no. No… that's not… no…" He can hardly breathe from his pain, her pain, all their pain melded together inside him.

"It's true though. All of it. It's true." And she bites her lip, hard, so she won't cry.

"No… please, Lily. Let me explain…." He is shaking. He needs to tell her… tell her everything.

"Why are we even here, James?" For the millionth time, she says his name. "Why is it, that when I say your name, you don't say mine? Who am I to you? Another girl? Another…." she pauses, and her eyes are filled with bitterness as she spits out, "Another hook-up? Who, James? Who am I?" Her voice is low now, filled with sorrow that tastes so sour on her tongue she wishes she could spit it back up.

"No…" Without thinking, he slips into his old habit, the one he had before they started dating. "Evans…"

She gasps in shock at the use of her surname. She feels as if someone has stabbed her in the heart. As if her heart were crystal glass and James Potter took it out, held it in the palm of his hand, just for a moment, a long, sweet, terrible moment, and then dropped it, letting it shatter into a billion fragments on the floor.

Her breath is short and fast, everything except for the boy in front of her iw spinning. He is in painfully clear focus as her words spill out.

"So that's what it's about. You were going to break-up with me. Well, now I've saved you the trouble. Why don't you go find Roxanna, or Lindsay, or Victoria?"

And what she's said is true. He was planning on breaking up with her. He had reasons before, but now they are lost. And he realizes what a fool he is.

After he has swallowed her whole, tasted her, then spit her out again…

"Don't… no…. Stay, Lily, please."

"Give me a reason."

He is floundering in open water, and a ship is in sight, but he can't make that leap of faith yet, can't give up his last bit of energy to wave at it, with only the slight hope it will notice him. And he can't do it yet, so she presses her lips together, feeling drowned by the salty water, and says, "I love you. But I can't love you, if you don't love me."

And she is gone, the only trace of her presence a slight whiff of her perfume and the memory of what could have been.


	2. A Mirror And A Crystal Heart

**For The First Time**

**Chapter 2**

**A Mirror And A Crystal Heart**

Lily Evans always had a plan. She always had a back-up. And she most certainly always knew what she was doing. But James Potter… he wasn't a plan. He wasn't a back-up. And he most certainly made sure she did not know what she was doing.

But perhaps that's what she liked about him. She liked that she never knew what was coming. Liked that he was a surprise every day. She even liked that he dragged her away from her homework, because Merlin knew she needed it sometimes.

Looking back, she likes the way their relationship played out. Until the end. He had to play her. Had to grab that crystal heart. Had to let that cold rock feel the warmth of his hand. Had to let it go. Had to let it fall.

Because she has fallen, now. She has fallen, and for the first time in her life before James Potter came along, she doesn't have a plan. She doesn't have a back-up. She doesn't know what she's doing. But most of all, she doesn't know how she's going to get back up.

OoOoOo

He had a mirror in his head. A mirror that showed him what he needed most. And he didn't look into this mirror frequently. It was in him though. A reflection of what he needed.

And for a long time, that mirror showed Lily Evans. Until one day, the mirror became blurry. It was no longer sure what it wanted. And so James became unsure. Or perhaps it was the other way around.

And so he broke up with Lily Evans.

But now the mirror is back, more sure than ever. But the thing is, in that moment of uncertainty, he dropped something. Perhaps it was his own heart. It must be, because he can't feel anymore.

OoOoOo

There are many ways to break a heart. You can stomp on it. You can crush it. You can crack it slowly. You can cut it apart.

James didn't do any of those things. He broke a heart, yes. But he broke it in a way that is so terrifyingly scary, yet so amazingly terrifying, that Lily didn't even know what was happening.

It started off in his hand. It was warm. Those were the sunny days. The happy ones. The ones spent wondering not where he was now, or what he was doing, or why Lindsay McElroy was absent from the tree she normally sat under, but wondering what he had planned for tonight. Wondering, not, _where was he now?_ but, where was he now?

It was simple. Then, with a jerk of the hand, the crystal heart flew up. It was a small trip through the air though, and it came back well enough. But it was still scared though. It began to beat faster.

That was the first time James' eyes had followed Victoria Valdez's ass to the table.

It was the first time he had looked uncomfortable with a conversation they were having.

It was the first time he didn't say her name.

As the days went on, the heart continued it's fast pace. For a few days after, the heart managed to calm down.

Then Lindsay McElroy leaned down to ask James something, purposefully doling out her chest on James' eyes, and it was the first time that James' eyes strayed just a bit too far south.

The heart went up, farther this time, and came back down, bruising on impact.

It was the first time he stuttered when he answered the question Lindsay posed. It was the first time Lindsay McElroys' eyes flashed with victory.

It was the first time when he kissed Lily that he pulled away first.

It was the fifth time he seemed to forget her name.

She didn't want to doubt him. But her eyes could hardly miss his own straying ones, and even as she brushed it off thinking to herself, _Boys will be boys_, a tiny, niggling doubt appeared in the back of her mind. A doubt that said, _But he never used to do this before…_

For the third time, the heart went up, and for the third time it came down. For the third time, it was slightly sore.

For the first time, he didn't ask her to do something that night. For the first time, she found herself wanting to cry, though she wasn't even sure why. For the first time, he didn't immediately grab her hand as they walked out of class.

For the thousandth time, Roxanna Vane sat down right in front of James, robbing Lily of her rightful spot. For the first time, he didn't bother telling her Lily was sitting there.

For the tenth time, her name was lost on his lips.

At last, for the final time, the heart went up… but it didn't hit his achingly familiar palm. It didn't hit his shoe and come bouncing up. It didn't fall back into its scared place right next to his own heart.

For the first time, the heart went up, came back down, and shattered on the floor.


	3. For The First Time

**Author's Note: Okay, so I've been getting a few reviews saying that James would never do that to Lily, so here's my answer for you. I completely understand where you're coming from, I mean, sometimes I get upset about that stuff like that too. For example, when someone puts that James has blue eyes or something, I'm like, "NO! HIS EYES ARE HAZEL!" But I also think that the point of FanFiction is to try to do something new. And that's what this story is, a What If? sort of thing. I'm sorry that you feel that way, and I repect your opinion, but I don't agree with it. I really do hope you continue to read though! **

**Anyways, this is the last chapter, and I hope you've liked this as much as I have!**

**~iambookworm**

**Chapter 3**

**For The First Time**

"Lily… please."

"No."

"Why did you come out here then?"

"I only came out here because Marlene told me you were threatening to sleep out here." She is reminded of her conversation with Severus only a couple of years ago…. Though this time he is a Gryffindor, not a Slytherin, and they are together in the Common Room.

"I would have! Anything for you…"

"You're lying."

"I'm not! Lily, I lo—"

"Don't say it! You don't mean it! You just feel guilty!"

"But, Lily, I do!"

She shakes her head in disgust.

"No, you don't."

"Lily… Just listen… No—listen!" She has looked away, seemingly about to walk up her staircase to her dormitory when he speaks, and she stops.

"Please, Lily," he continues, softer. "Just listen." A pause as he looks at her, his eyes pleading with her. "Please."

She pauses, turns, stares at him. Finally, she nods.

He takes a deep breath. "Lily, since the first day I met you, I have been absolutely and completely infatuated with you."

He peeks up at her hopefully, but her frown has not left her face. He plunges doggedly on. "For six years, I fought with you, I argued with you, I infuriated you—" He does that thing he always does, the thing she had once called the NSLHR, the half-snort, half-laugh while his hand finds his perpetually messy hair. "Both purposefully and without meaning to—and I loved you."

She lurches forward. It seems she is about to cover his mouth, to stop him saying the words, but he steps back out of her reach, shaking his head. "But I did, Lily. And I do." He continues his narration, hazel meeting emerald as she stands there silently, sadly.

"And then when we started this last year, I promised myself I was going to get you to be mine, no matter what it took. So I stopped asking you out. I found out your favorite Muggle candy, got Honeydukes to make it, and then gave you a huge bag of it on Halloween, a week before it was supposed to come out."

Her smile comes out, her "Slight Smile", as he once called it. Only now, it's not as full and warm as it once was. It's still hurting; it's still sore.

"Then on Christmas, I went shopping for you. I searched all over Hogsmeade for the perfect present to get you. And when I found it, it still wasn't good enough. So I wrapped it up and sent it to you… in a Golden Snitch, so you would always know who it came from."

She is crying silently now, a few drops of salty water slipping down her cheeks from her emerald eyes which are sparkling like liquidized jewels.

"I sent you flowers on Valentines' Day, lilies mixed with roses, and learned how to write your name in cursive so you'd be impressed with me." He does the NSLHR again, though this time it is entirely directed at himself.

"And then, on your birthday, I did the only thing I had left to do. I asked to be your friend. It wasn't a gift for you, really, but I suppose it turned out to be, because you admitted you wanted to be more than that. And then I was flying.

"For a while, everything was great. We were more than friends. I hugged you, you hugged me. I kissed you… and you kissed me back. Then you said something to Sirius. You were just teasing, but I got jealous. I was childish, and stupid, and I suppose I felt like I had to 'get back at you'.

"So I was mean. I made sure you saw me look at Victoria Valdez's butt when she sat down at the Ravenclaw table.

"Then we were talking… and I knew you saw how awkward I felt. But it was only because I felt terrible. I hated myself for doing that to you. I felt weird, and I avoided you for a while.

"I stopped saying your name, Lily, because I was scared I was going to mess up. I was dwelling so much on what I had done, feeling so guilty that I had hurt you, that I thought I might say Victoria's name instead of yours, and that you would, of course, think it was because I was thinking about her… in a… bad way. So I stopped saying your name."

By this time they are sitting in front of the fire, her emerald eyes trained on the flickering flames, the hot bursts of fire throwing shadows across her face, making the tears and their paths glitter on her face. He continues to stare at her.

"I felt so guilty, I was doing all the wrong things. I told myself over and over again that I would be good now. Then Lindsay shoved her chest in my face and I did the wrong thing again. And then I answered her, and I stuttered. I did the wrong thing again.

"Then we had that kiss…. I was still doing everything wrong, and I felt so unfaithful. I felt like I didn't deserve you. So I pulled away. And I hurt you again.

"And then you were sitting outside with Marlene, and I wanted so badly to ask you if you would like to do something that night, but I couldn't. I was doing everything wrong. And I was still hurting you.

"And all that guilt… it made me a terrible person. I stopped holding your hand so much. I know you noticed it. When Roxanna sat in your spot at breakfast, I didn't bother telling her to move. I didn't realize what a huge jerk I was being until too late."

He pauses, and his breath is ragged as he continues. He looks away from her now, staring intensely into the fire.

"I was going to break up with you."

The shock of the words are enough to send more fat tears rolling down Lily's cheeks. Yet she still doesn't look at him.

"I was going to break up with you… because I hated myself for hurting you. And that's the truth, Lily. You deserve better than me. I'm a bad person. I'm so sorry for hurting you. Please, Lily. I'm so sorry. If you can't forgive me… I understand."

He waits, silent, and she is silent, too. Suddenly she speaks for the first time in his speech.

"I… forgive you. And…"

She turns to him, and there's something there… in her eyes….

"And I want you back."

And for the first time, James Potter tells Lily Evans he loves her.

**HOPE YOU LIKED! :) Please Review! I'll love you forever and ever! Also, I'm writing another story called What's Left of Me: A Lily and James Fanfic if you guys want to check that out!**

**~iambookworm**


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